


For A ZPM

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2017 [24]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9632105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay, he gets a chance to show off is acting chops in an unexpected way."Rodney will do just about anything for a ZPM.





	

“They don’t want _anything?_ ” Rodney asked in disbelief. He cast a look at the medieval stone castle, the spear-wielding guards, the fluttering pennants. “But - but we have medicine and technology and -”

“If they are happy with their way of life, then we have nothing to offer them,” Teyla said gently.

“But they have a fully-charged ZPM and quite possibly a ZPM charging station!” Rodney cast John a pleading look. “Come on. We _need_ ZPMs like we need air. Do they have a princess they need to marry off? Lorne, you have the gene, right? You wanna marry an alien princess?”

Major Lorne stared at Rodney but said nothing.

John sighed. “No, Rodney, you cannot go marrying off my officers for gene breeding purposes. What about a cultural exchange? Would they be interested in movies or music or books?”

Teyla considered. “Perhaps. I do not believe that Lord Faffnon wishes to be difficult, but he cannot let you enter the sacred site without payment, and as we have no money -”

“Let’s just ask,” John said.

Teyla nodded and led the way back into the throne room were Lord Faffnon was having an aside with one of his advisors. Teyla bowed her head politely, and Lord Faffnon excused his advisor.

“Teyla of Athos,” he said. “What do you offer me?”

“A cultural exchange,” Teyla said. “The people of Atlantis have much beautiful music and poetry -”

“And art,” Rodney broke in. “Major Lorne’s a painter!”

John elbowed him. “Knock it off.”

Lord Faffnon eyed them for a long time, long enough that John was starting to get nervous. Finally, he said, “There is one thing. Perhaps. I do not know if this sort of thing is in your area of expertise, but - my son.”

“What about your son? Does he need tutoring?” Rodney asked.

“He does,” Lord Faffnon said. “In the ways of love.”

John blinked. Rodney blinked.

“What?”

Lord Faffnon warmed to the subject, leaned forward on his throne. “Yes, Dr. McKay, you have won the heart of the likes of Colonel Sheppard. He is a fine specimen of a man. You can help my boy woo his lady love.”

Rodney floundered. He couldn’t really explain that he hadn’t wooed John so much as gotten him drunk and defenseless, declared his feelings, waited for John to sober up, and then surprised him in the command office by crawling onto his lap and making out with him (after cleverly ensuring that Lorne was distracted in another part of the city).

“You know I’m a man, right?” John asked.

It was Rodney’s turn to elbow him sharply.

“What?” John protested. “Wooing men is different from wooing women.”

Teyla said, “Dr. McKay and Colonel Sheppard have an unconventional -”

“Sure,” Rodney said, because they needed a ZPM. “Where’s your boy? Let me talk to him, straighten him out.”

“Not sure you’re qualified to _straighten_ anyone out,” Lorne muttered.

Rodney whipped around and glared at him. “Someone has to make sacrifices for this expedition, and since you were unwilling, you can keep your mouth shut.” He turned back to Lord Faffnon. “So, where’s your son?”

*

Lord Faffnon’s son Darrilon was a lanky, thin, timid thing. He looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. He couldn’t even make eye-contact with Teyla, and she made him so nervous that Rodney gave up and sent her out of the room.

Ronon looked unfairly amused, but Rodney stood before Darrilon, took in his skinny legs in patchy hose, the way his tunic was baggy on him (he hadn’t inherited his father’s broad stature) and his pale face.

“What have you tried so far?” Rodney asked.

Darrilon blinked. “Tried?”

“To woo your lady love,” Rodney said, and grad school really hadn’t prepared him for this. Neither had gate team training.

Darrilon wet his lips. “I know her name.”

“Have you talked to her?” Rodney asked.

Darrilon shook his head.

“Have you made eye contact with her?”

Darrilon shook his head.

“Does she even know you’re alive?” Rodney pressed.

Darrilon shrugged.

“Well,” Rodney said, “this might be a bit more complicated than Lord Faffnon led us to believe.”

“What are we going to do?” John asked. “I’m pretty sure not even I could charm a girl from scratch like that.”

“Your days of charming girls from scratch are over.” Rodney began to pace. “Let me think.”

And then, because he was Rodney, he had a brilliant plan. He sent Lorne and Teyla to do recon on Darrilon’s lady love - find out her name, where she lived, what kinds of things she liked vis-a-vis sweetmeats, flowers, music, poetry - and then he got John to teach Darrilon how to walk like a man.

Or at least walk with his head up and his shoulders back and occasionally make eye contact with people and even talk to girls. They started small, with serving girls (who were too intimidated by Darrilon’s rank and station to give him a hard time), and eventually moved up to Teyla, who returned to report her findings.

Darrilon’s lady love, a wealthy merchant’s daughter named Sinnalee, was conventional. Lorne provided a sketch of her - she was very pretty indeed. She liked flowers and poetry and music. Best as Teyla could tell, her affections were not currently directed toward anyone else. Lorne had, in typical Lorne fashion, asked around the palace staff and some of the merchants and found out where to procure Sinnalee’s favorite sweetmeats and flowers, the name of her favorite minstrel, and the name of her tutor, who would know who her favorite poets were.

“So what now?” John asked. “We, what, teach Darrilon to recite a poem under Sinnalee’s window while he strums a guitar and then we get the ZPM?”

When Darrilon heard that, he fainted.

While Teyla and Ronon revived him, Rodney said, “Obviously this is going to take more than one day. Go back to the gate and radio Atlantis and let them know we need some extra time.”

“Extra time to what?” John asked.

“Also tell them we need your guitar and your book of collected Shakespearean poems and best speeches,” Rodney added.

John, who’d started for the door, paused. “How do you know I have Shakespearean -?”

“You’re reading _War and Peace_ and you went to fancy private schools. Of course you have Shakespeare,” Rodney snapped. “Now go!”

When John hesitated, Rodney added, “It’s for a ZPM, remember?”

John took Lorne with him for good measure.

“So, really, what is the plan?” Teyla asked.

“Kind of what John said,” Rodney said. “Except with a bit of a Cyrano de Bergerac twist.”

Ronon and Teyla looked puzzled.

“Zeus and Roxanne?”

They still looked puzzled.

Rodney sighed. “Fine. Darrilon, get over here. Talk to me.”

*

The look on Woolsey’s face when John explained the situation to him and the supplies and extra time they’d need was priceless, and John wished he’d had a camera there. He had the next best thing, which was Lorne’s borderline photographic memory and his art skills, so he could put the memory down on paper for posterity.

“For the sketchbook?” John asked as they headed for his quarters.

“Definitely, sir.”

John fetched his guitar and his hefty, well-thumbed volume of Shakespearean poetry. Lorne rounded up some other volumes of romantic poetry for good measure. They stopped by the labs to ask Zelenka for a recording and playback device and a little solar charger, one that would power the device but that wouldn’t be missed too much on Atlantis, and then it was back through the gate.

The soldiers waiting at the gate escorted them straight to Darrilon’s quarters where -

John pulled up short.

He felt like he’d walked into some kind of alternate reality, because for one second it was like Darrilon had possessed Rodney. Rodney and Darrilon stood toe-to-toe, and Rodney had Darrilon’s same avoidant gaze, hunched shoulders, tendency to shift from foot to foot.

But abruptly Rodney was his strident self when he said, “Say that again?”

Darrilon mumbled something too low for John to quite make out, but he caught the cadences of Darrilon’s voice, its rises and falls. Rodney repeated the words back to him with the exact same inflections.

Rodney sighed. “Well, life would be better if you stood taller and made eye contact - she’s your lady love, not a rabid rhinoceros - but we’ll make do with what we have.” And he straightened, was fully himself again. “John, Lorne, excellent. Here’s the plan.”

“What’s a rhinoceros?” Darrilon asked Ronon.

Ronon shrugged.

The length of the mission depended an awful lot on the long-term preparations John and Lorne’s teams had to make before they could leave Darrilon to his lady love. The initial wooing was simple - Rodney was going to dress up as Darrilon and serenade Sinnalee with a sonnet beneath her window (John would be accompanying him on his guitar), but then Darrilon would be the one to climb the trellis outside her window with her favorite flower in his teeth, present the flower to her, and sweep her off her feet (Lorne and his men did recon and ensured the trellis was safe to climb).

But that wouldn’t be enough, of course. Darrilon had to be prepared to continue to romance Sinnalee, so Rodney recorded some sonnets (selected for their similarity to Sinnalee’s preferred brand of poetry, which John and Stevens had been in charge of vetting) in Darrilon’s voice for Darrilon to play for her or, in the alternative, memorize himself and recite to her.

Lorne and Ronon made Darrilon a cheat book, with copies of her favorite poems in it, pictures and the names of her favorite flowers, the names and recipes of her favorite sweetmeats, and the names of some of her favorite songs.

The important part was ensuring that Darrilon could actually climb the trellis. While Rodney recorded sonnets and perfected his recitation of the initial sonnet (and John practiced accompanying him), Ronon and Teyla put Darrilon through a fitness boot camp so he could make the climb without huffing and puffing like a winded cat by the time he reached Sinnalee’s window. (They added to the back of the cheat book a series of exercises Darrilon should regularly engage in to maintain his fitness so he could perform other physical tasks in the name of romance.)

Lorne arranged for one of the palace tailors to make a Rodney-sized replica of the most flattering outfit Darrilon owned, and for a selection of Sinnalee’s favorite sweetmeats to be on hand on the night of the First Wooing, should Darrilon summon someone from the kitchens.

Ronon and Teyla made Darrilon do multiple practice climbs up a trellis of a similar height that led to a different window.

After two weeks, it was show time.

John, dressed in black and armed with his guitar, stood beneath Sinnalee’s window in the shadows while Rodney, dressed identically to Darrilon, stood beneath the window.

Ronon, who had the best aim, threw several pebbles at the shutters to get Sinnalee to open the window.

“Who goes there?”

Rodney cleared his throat. “Darrilon, my lady.”

He’d always bragged about getting that drama award when he was twelve, but by all reports the performance he’d put on during the hail mary rescue of Atlantis from the Replicators hadn’t been that great, so John hadn’t been sure what to expect. Except for those two weeks he’d seen Rodney become Darrilon at the drop of a hat, every time he recorded a sonnet, every time he needed to practice. Everything from his voice - that he could mimic voices so well was impressive and also a bit disturbing - to the way he walked and used his hands and even _breathed_ was Darrilon.

Sinnalee, who wasn’t oblivious to the ways of wooing, rested her elbow on the windowsill and her chin in her hand. “What brings you to my window, Darrilon?”

“I wish to impart a message, my lady.”

“What kind of message?”

“Of your beauty, my lady, and how it has captured my heart,” Rodney said, but if John closed his eyes, he’d have believed he was hearing Darrilon.

“Oh? Do tell.”

John started picking a soft arpeggio, and Rodney began to recite, not Shakespeare, but Byron’s _She Walks In Beauty_ , in Darrilon’s querulous but determined tones.

Sinnalee’s gaze never wavered from Rodney, and that had to be a good thing, right? Except - except how would they make the switch?

When the poem was finished, Rodney asked if he could bring the lady a token of his affection. Sinnalee nodded, and Rodney ducked back into the shadows.

“You’re up, champ.” He clapped Darrilon on the shoulder and handed him the flower.

“Go get ‘er, tiger,” John added.

“What’s a tiger?” Darrilon asked.

“Go!” Rodney hissed.

Darrilon put the flower stem in his teeth very carefully, stepped out of the shadows, and began the climb. John didn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath till Darrilon reached the top and held out the flower, and Sinnalee accepted it, and then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Laughing, she drew him into her chamber and closed the window behind her.

There was giggling and a thump and a _my lady!_

John cleared his throat. “So, mission accomplished. Well done, everybody. Let’s go talk to Lord Faffnon and get that ZPM before, you know, this success becomes a diplomatic incident.”

Rodney tugged off the cap he’d been wearing to hide his face. “Huh. Didn’t think that actually got guys laid. Oh well. To the ZPM!”

“What do you mean, didn’t think?” Lorne asked.

“It always works in movies, but this is real life,” Rodney said, heading for Lord Faffnon’s throne room. “I mean, we put a lot of effort into it, and if she snubbed him, well, he’s a measly guy. They couldn’t pin his failure on us. But hey, it worked, now we get what we want.”

John followed him. While Teyla and Ronon and Lorne went ahead to explain their success - without alluding to the potential failure that followed - John hung back with Rodney.

“Hey.” He nudged Rodney with his shoulder.

“Hey what?”

“You were pretty good back there.”

“I was, wasn’t I?”

John nodded. “Yes, you were.”

Rodney glanced at him. “What, you want poetry and flowers from me?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a little poetry. Just - as yourself. Darrilon’s voice is -” John shuddered.

“Noted,” Rodney said. “But first, the ZPM.”

A month later, Atlantis had its own ZPM recharging station, and John and Rodney celebrated with candles and soft music and maybe even a little poetry.


End file.
